Outside
Did anyone else start this novel expecting a totally different story structure? When I was reading through “Presents” and “Unlying”, I thought Room would end with Ma and Jack managing to get out. I thought their escape would be the culminating test of the novel, the final stage of their literary journey home. It was the only thing I wanted for Ma and Jack, but especially Ma – I wanted her to return to that little house with a hammock, I wanted her to return to her family, to safety, to some sense of happy normality. Those sections where she talks about her life before Room were really hard to read; there’s so much longing between the lines. Those quasi-familiar images were what I established as Ma’s ultimate goal, and what I came to equate freedom (and Outside) with. I thought their Outside would be Ma’s paradise.
Outside, however, for both me and for Ma, has been nowhere near paradise. I hadn’t even really thought about repercussions of her kidnapping within her family until her parents were introduced. By the time Ma’s able to return to her world, everything stable within it has changed – her parents have divorced, her father lives in Australia, her mother has a new (and unsatisfactory) partner, and her older brother has a family of his own. She won’t ever really be able to return to that little house with the hammock, or anything like the life she had before. Of course, that’s not all bad, seeing how she has Jack now, but I’m still nostalgic for that perfect childhood she described, still grasping at that idyllic image. It’s just too much to finally escape Room, only to find that a slew of other emotional problems awaits you Outside. The world has moved on without her, sad as it is to admit. Morris (the lawyer) tells Ma that “[Old Nick] robbed you of the seven best years of your life.” While I’m on Ma’s side when she says that he doesn’t know that they would have been the best years of her life, it remains that that was likely the case for all her friends. They’ve graduated, gotten jobs, and likely started families while Ma was away, starting an entirely new chapter of their lives (adulthood) without her. Other changes in technology and culture are easier to adjust to, but I don’t think we can overestimate the effect those micro-changes might have on her as well.
While understanding Jack’s transition is key, I think it’s also crucial to focus on how Ma’s starting to reconnect with Outside. A topic of interest during 2nd hour’s discussions has been whether or not Ma has been moving too fast for Jack. This might be a controversial viewpoint, but I think Ma does need to slow down just a little, not for Jack but for herself. I don’t think she needs to control her exposure to food or showers or other mundanities, but rather her re-emergence into her personal life outside of Jack. Meeting with her family and seeing her friends is of course of utmost importance, but it’s also possible that she’s overexposing herself to the hurtful personal changes in her world. Oversaturating her worldview with changes that only remind her of time lost in Room may not be great for her mental health. Maybe I’m inflating this out of proportion, but I do think Ma may be trying to take on too much of the world too fast, focusing on a family that no longer understands her. Outside, while much better than Room, is a prison of its own – taking it slow with Jack (who was her savior in Room) may be better for the both of them.
Good points. It's interesting how, while both Ma and Jack are having trouble adjusting to their new life, Ma understands the necessity of their escape and enjoys her freedom, while Jack keeps wishing for aspects of his old life back every once in a while.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the passages where Ma is describing her former life to Jack are emotionally taxing to read. Of course we assume Ma has had a rich and full life before her abduction, but finally hearing her talk about it in detail, with names of family members and details like the hammock she remembers, bring a whole new level of poignancy to the story. If Ma were narrating, this is stuff she'd be telling us right off the bat--the *meaning* of her abduction story has everything to do with this "ordinary world" she's been forcefully removed from. But part of what makes it so emotionally taxing for me to read is that she reveals such *relief* when she's finally able to talk openly about her story, and share these important details with Jack--which are, of course, details about *his* life and *his* family, after all. Once again, we get a twisted or extreme version of a classic parent-child dynamic: the child fascinated by stories about the parent before the child was born, the "grandma was *your* mommy?" situation (understandably blows kids' minds!), only Ma has had NO ONE TO TALK TO ABOUT ANY OF THIS for the last seven years. Jack's attention keeps wandering, and he's a frustrating audience, but I'm struck simply by the evident relief in Ma's voice as she can finally "unlie" and share all of this with her son.
ReplyDeleteI think we all expected the Great Escape to be the end of Room, but I'm honestly glad it wasn't. I think it would have gotten pretty boring rather quickly to spend the entire book in Room watching Ma and Jack suffer at the hands of Old Nick (provided he let them live at all -- let's not forget that he's lost his job and probably isn't paying his mortgage, and he'd probably rather not have his prisoners discovered if his house is repossessed). And I was in the same position as you: I expected Outside to be happy and perfect. But it's not. We all expected it to be perfect because it's not Room, but things are drastically different after seven years. The only thing Ma really has to return to is her family -- after seven years, her friends have moved on, and an experience like Ma's changes a person to the point where she's too different to go back to the friends she used to have. And on top of all that, Ma's financial life is a bit screwed. She was in college, so she was clearly planning on having a degree being an essential part of her later job. But she obviously didn't finish, and going back would be really hard at this point (if not impossible) because of Jack. There's only so long they can stay in the clinic (their lawyer did say the clinic is waiving its fees in the short term, so they're not in debt yet), and eventually they'll have to start their own life. But that won't be for a long time. Most likely, they'll live with Ma's mother for a while, maybe even years. For Jack, life is more likely to become normal -- he just turned five in March, so he's set to start kindergarten in fall. He might not start in September because he's still adjusting and learning Outside, but even if he started the September after that, he's only a year older than everyone else. It's not too late for him, but it will take years for Ma to get a semblance of a normal life with her own home and a full-time job.
ReplyDeleteI also expected Room to end with the great escape but I think the it accomplishes more by depicting the various traumas caused by the time in Room and showing how Ma deals with the outside world. However, it also completely changes the tone of the book. If the time spent in Room had been longer and there had been more build-up to the escape and then the book ended with the escape I think it would have a much more triumphant tone. Instead the reader has to watch as Jack and Ma struggle to acclimate to the real world.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the time when people think about horrific events they think of the end of physical danger as the end of the story and don't consider the lasting effects of the trauma. I really appreciate that Donoghue continues the story after the great escape and shows us the challenges Ma and Jack continue to face and the ways the outside world fails to support them. In terms of Ma going to fast, I don't know what a ride speed could be but one scene that struck me was when she's interviewed for a talk show. Ma comports herself and defends herself amazingly but it seemed like a terrible situation for anyone dealing with trauma and Ma had only been free for a matter of days so maybe it was moving too fast. But as Elizabeth points out, Ma could have significant financial problems. So moving at a slower pace might not be an option.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the exploration of the consequences of the great escape was a necessary part of this novel. If we had simply left off with Jack and Ma making it out, we might have just accepted that it was a happy ending since they got out. However, as the novel shows, the result is anything but. Both Jack and Ma have been damaged by the experience. Jack might not know how much being kept in that 11x11 room changed him off normal development, but I would assume Ma knows. I think that this was an essential part of a novel like this: the consequences are the hardest part.
ReplyDeleteI was also expecting the book to end with Jack and Ma escaping. Being able to see them trying to adjust to the world is a surprising, but interesting experience. Jack and Ma see Outside in completely different ways. Jack sees it as a completely new and unknown experience, sometimes making him "homesick" for Room. However, Ma sees it as going back to something that she hasn't seen in 7 years that has changed dramatically from when she was ripped out of it.
ReplyDeleteI also expected for the story to end with Ma and Jack escaping from Old Nick. The length, however, of their return home is appropriate. Seven years is a long time to be locked away from society, and (as you mentioned) a lot can change. For the rest of the book, we will be able to see Ma and Jack become the "Master of Both Worlds" and learn to adapt to this new world. The return home is an important component of the Campbell hero's journey paradigm.
ReplyDeleteGood points. I think that's what I find so great about this novel. Often, a heroes journey narrative ends once the goal established in the beginning is achieved. Like, we hadn't gotten to see a further glance into Odysseys return past the anger of the suitors parents. Wouldn't it be interesting to see maybe the possible troubles between Odysseus and Penelope as they have a disconnect of 10 years, where both of them have inevitably gotten older, all the while Odysseus had slept with goddesses. And I think partly that's because many heroes narratives don't come without sacrifices, and the moment we see the price of those sacrifices come into play, we start to get a slightly bitter taste in our mouth as we are reminded that even the heroes hadn't done something to perfection, and that they where infact human.
ReplyDeleteWell, having read to the end of After, may I say that you're not overstating Ma's difficulties at all. She faces an incredible loss: the loss of a stable family, a group of college friends, and a bright future. And she faces new problems, like media presence and how on earth to adapt her five-year-old child to everyday life.
ReplyDeleteWhile she was in Room, she had clearly defined goals. She had to keep Jack happy and she had to get out. But now that she's left Room, she has several conflicting ones. She still wants Jack happy. She needs to find a place to live. She needs to get back on her feet employment-wise, or find an alternate income source. She needs to "get better" enough at the ward to convince them to let her go. And backing up all of these problems: she MUST manage the media presence so she and her son no longer feel like they're being burned by a magnifying glass. All of these stresses, combined with the tiny combined aggressions of people questioning her parenting style or asking whether she ever misses Room, drive her to deep depression.
Wow, I loved what you said in this post. Like you, I was expecting their escape to happen later in the book, but I love Donoghue's choice to have that happen halfway through the book. I love how you discussed what Ma was expecting when she escaped. That image that she had of her home was one of the only things keeping her going and then when she finally escaped, it's not real anymore. It must have been heartbreaking to see and it made it seem like her whole family had moved on without her, especially her dad. I also agree with what you said about Ma also going slow when readjusting. Especially after the last reading, it's obvious that she needs to take her time and also learn to accept help and to get past what happened. Nice post!
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